Pranks. Pranks. Pranks. What to do without pranks? A Groton without pranks is like a rainforest without rain, a peanut-butter and jelly without the jelly. Recently, graduates who returned to the Circle began conversations asking, “So, what kind of pranks are you kids up to nowadays?”

Groton has a long tradition of pranks. Most notable was the unveiling of the world’s largest tiled poster on the Chapel that read “Big Brother is Watching You” and made the Guinness Book of World Records in May 2008.

Mr. Bannard recalls his own senior prank: to create a perfect copy of the student schedule template (back when everyone had paper schedules), then put fake schedules in every student’s mailbox at the start of spring term, putting second formers in AP Chemistry and other advanced classes etc. Pranks didn’t go through the administration at that time, so there wasn’t any issue in getting this one passed; however, Mr. Bannard and his friends did almost get in trouble because the template they created was so good the school thought they had hacked into the system.

He also recalls three great pranks that happened a year or two before he arrived to Groton – a senior rappelled down the side of the Chapel and hung on the wall a big “For Sale” sign, complete with the headmaster’s phone number, that was visible from Farmers Row. Rumor has it that the student who initiated the prank was a former advisee of Dr. Reyes.

Several years later, when Mr. Bannard was in fifth form, the seniors replaced the text of the right hand side of the school hymn with the lyrics to Britney Spears’ “Baby One More Time.” Undoubtedly, this took many returning Grotonians by surprise. And lastly, Mr. Bannard’s brother’s class prank brought the cops to arrest the headmaster at Roll Call for serving alcohol to underage people at Reunions.

In more recent years, pranks have strayed from mere amusement. In 2011, the seniors kidnapped the entire school and dragged them down to the boathouse before Chapel began. Much to his dismay, Chris Higginson ’14 arrived on the Circle for Revisit Day only to find an empty chapel. The seniors of 2011 meticulously planned each stop and how to congregate the student body covertly and take them to down to the Boathouse. For breakfast, donuts were served, but by noon students were mandated to return back to the Circle for classes.

In 2012, seniors held a filibuster – a Roll Call filled with so many student announcements that it lasted over an hour and a half. The main goal was to trap the entire school in the Schoolroom. The result was quite miserable—the entrapment of over 400 individuals in one wooden room on a hot spring day lead to jumping out of windows and escaping to classes. In addition, the seniors tied all the backpacks together while students were in Chapel. A teacher who had a swiss army knife eventually had to cut all the cords connecting all the backpacks.

In 2013, seniors parked Francisco Fernandez’s car in the middle of the Schoolroom, which required roughly 50 Schoolroom desks to be unscrewed and moved. Afterwards, they surprised the school with a Carnival Day and had many activities such as face painting, ice cream truck, a bouncy castle, dunk tank, Twister, and a kissing booth.

In 2014 and 2015, there was no major senior prank. In 2014, seniors placed furniture in the Dining Hall senior section and put a significant amount of stickers on the Schoolroom desks. In 2015, the seniors planted a tree in the middle of the Circle, which ultimately wilted because of the strong winds that day.

Most recently, the 2016 seniors surprised everyone with a beach day on the Circle. The idea was clever, well planned, and momentous, complete with an ice cream truck, cookout, bouncy clouds and a blow up slip and slide.